WEDNESDAY, April 29, we went crazy with business at the shop. The end of April usually marks the finish of six-month winter contracts between car owners and classic vehicle storage warehouses. So we had a fresh wave, along with the last of the cars owners had stored at home and finally unearthed on the weekend. All needed at least tune-ups and oil changes, while some had problems evident on start-up after months of not running.
We’d already been busy enough with early bird customers eager to get their cars going once the rain had washed the last of the salt off the roads.
The phone never stopped ringing, and cars started to pile up on our forecourt and in our back compound. I tried to reach JP to get him to come in to help us out after all, but got no answer at Michelle’s flat.
With the flurry of activity, I didn’t get a chance to phone Derek to go over Isabelle’s theory about how Bartlett’s wallet turned up at JP’s apartment. In any event, we would be meeting him the next day, so I just concentrated on working with Dougald and Reg on the brightly coloured roadsters brought in by their eager, grinning owners. Spring had definitely arrived.
After an exhausting day, I had a soup and sandwich at the coffee chain down the street and then tottered up to the loft. I had trouble getting to sleep. Besides mulling over the meeting we’d be having with Derek the next morning, I was thinking about Sandy.
She’d agreed to go with me to the party at the home of my old friends Tom and Linda the upcoming Saturday night. First, I’d help her move to her new apartment that afternoon. Then we’d have dinner out before heading to the party. Angela had agreed to stay over the weekend at Isabelle’s to babysit Jane there. Saturday, Sandy and I would be truly on our own, briefly away from where we lived, away from those in our care.
I tossed and turned like some fevered adolescent most of the night.
By 9:45 Thursday morning, I was seriously angry with JP. He hadn’t shown up with Michelle, and our appointment at Derek Skinner’s office was at 10 a.m. We were going to be late. Derek was a friend, but had a busy practice, and his time was precious. Had JP done a runner? If so, was it because he was overwhelmed with the evidence against him? Or had he, in fact, taken the wallet after all?
I was in my office, fuming, and just about to reach for the phone to see if I could reschedule the appointment with Derek when I heard a very loud rumbling from outside.
I went out through our open main door.
A mud-splattered and rusty one-ton van, loud with a broken exhaust, had pulled up at our forecourt. Attached to the van’s hitch was an equally clapped-out looking double-axle trailer on which was obviously a car of some type, covered with a ragged, stained tarpaulin. Flattened tires on spoked wheels showed under the edge of the tarpaulin.
JP burst out of the passenger side of the van, followed by Michelle.
“I am sorry, I am late, boss. But look …”
JP and Michelle had been joined by the van’s driver, a grizzled older man, perhaps seventy years of age, dressed in overalls, muddy boots, and a baseball cap. He had an unlit stub of a roll-your-own cigarette stuck in his mouth. His chin hadn’t seen a razor for a few days, at least.
JP and this man moved to the trailer, and undid the tarp tie-downs on one side. JP jumped up onto the trailer, and pulled the freed tarp up and away.
By the time we were sitting in a boardroom in Derek’s office tower on Metcalfe, I had calmed down somewhat. Marjorie had called Derek’s secretary, told her we’d be late, and Derek was now seated at the head of the highly polished table, with a pen and a pad of lined yellow legal paper in front of him. The four of us – JP, Odette, Michelle, and I – sat around the table expectantly.
By now the Lagonda would be tucked away by Reg and Dougald on our lower basement floor, still covered with the tarp. Michelle’s oncle would be driving his van pulling the empty trailer back up to St. Pierre de Wakefield.
On the hurried drive to Derek’s office, I’d given JP and Michelle a bit of a blast.
“But boss …”
“Look, JP, the Lagonda could have waited. It’s been sitting in a shed for years, anyway. You and Michelle have something a little more important to attend to. Like an appointment with my lawyer, at my expense, who is going to try to sort out your problem and keep you out of jail because of a customer’s stolen wallet found in your apartment. Okay?”
I was ripping the Mini Cooper through the gears during all this, really winding the little engine’s revs up, scooting around buses and taxis along Queen Street while trying to keep an eye out for a parking space.
By the time I miraculously found a spot not far from Derek’s office tower, had loaded the meter with two hours’ worth of dollar coins and locked the car, they had both gone very quiet.
I paused on the sidewalk.
“Look, I’m sorry for yelling.”
“It’s okay, boss, you are right, I am sorry. I thought …”
I realized then what this was all about. By successfully convincing Michelle’s uncle that Britfit was the best place for the Lagonda, that only we would be able to steer the uncle out of harm’s way in trying to rescue the car, JP was trying to repay me for my support.
“Okay. We’ll look at the Lagonda as soon as possible. We’ve got lots of other customers’ cars in and we’re all going to be very busy. But one way or another, it’s a very special car, and we might be able to at least get some helpful publicity out of it. And that’s thanks to you and Michelle. Now let’s go.”
Derek had coffee brought in, and started asking JP and Michelle lots of questions.
They both swore up and down that they’d been nowhere near Maniwaki at the time the youth had tried to use Bartlett’s credit card at the hardware superstore. In fact, they’d spent the whole of that Saturday, April 25, in St. Pierre de Wakefield, talking to Michelle’s uncle, taking photos of the Lagonda, and trying to figure out how to get it clear of the shed. They’d also visited with some of Michelle’s cousins in the immediate area, and all had dinner together back at Michelle’s uncle’s house. Later, JP and Michelle had driven back to Michelle’s apartment where they spent the night and on Sunday just loafed around all day.
Michelle’s uncle would testify, yes, and so would the cousins, if necessary, as to their whereabouts on Saturday.
I talked about Isabelle’s notion of Bartlett’s son being the thief of his own father’s wallet. Did JP know this son? Had he been to the flat that JP technically shared with roommates?
“I don’t know. I have seen the guy, Bartlett’s son, at our shop, Conn. His name is Ted, je pense. But I have hardly been at the flat. It is, how you say, party central there …”
JP said he would check with his roommates about whether Bartlett’s son had been to the flat.
“I have to talk to them anyway because I am moving my stuff out. I am moving in with Michelle.”
This got Odette’s attention, and she asked questions, too, determining that JP hadn’t been in any other kind of trouble in the meantime.
“Not even a parking ticket?”
Odette could look fierce when she wanted to.
“Mais non, it is Michelle’s car, so that means she gets the tickets, not me!”
Derek had done some further checking with Ottawa PD about the Honda used by the suspect and his female accomplice to flee from the Maniwaki hardware superstore parking lot. Aside from noting the dealership sticker and that the licence plate was an Ontario one, number unknown, the Honda in question was variously described by witnesses as “brown,” “dark red,” or “gray.”
Michelle’s Civic was mostly dark gray where the bodywork hadn’t rusted, but there was no dealership sticker on the back at all, she pointed out.
“There are lots of these cars around,” Derek noted. His comfort level had obviously gone up with JP’s and Michelle’s adamant statements about their whereabouts with lots of witnesses on the Saturday in question.
“Okay. JP will talk to his roommates, and if they say Bartlett’s son was at the apartment, I want to know right away. Odette? You have all you need?”
We wrapped it up from there, and I had a last word with Derek in the boardroom while Odette, JP, and Michelle waited out front.
“Okay, Conn. This is looking a lot better. Key could be the Bartlett kid, from the sounds of it. We’ll talk.”
Odette headed off on foot to her office on Laurier, and the rest of us piled into the Cooper.
By 5 p.m. we’d cleared away the straightforward jobs, oil changes, and minor tune-ups on five roadsters and a fixedhead coupe. Marjorie had called the owners, and the cars were all waiting on the forecourt for collection. Mugs of tea in hand, Reg, Dougald, JP, and I were taking a break, looking at the more problematic vehicles we’d shifted in from the back compound, when the front door to the shop opened and in walked DS Sally Quinn.
She was wearing a long black trench coat, and black boots, and looked pretty formidable standing to her full five-foot, eight-inch height. She also looked angry.
Seeing me in the group, she fixed her eye on me and said: “Can we talk, Mr. Anderson? Perhaps outside would be best.”
I put my tea mug down on a workbench, shrugged at the others, and went outside with Quinn.
She glanced briefly at the sports cars awaiting collection by their owners, then north along Cambridge Street, looking at apartment windows, eyes in motion around the neighbourhood. Finally she turned and looked straight at me.
“Well, Mr. Anderson. You didn’t say anything to us the other day about seeing passports at Albert Archambault’s apartment when you were there.”
“Sorry, I guess I forgot. At the time, I was trying to satisfy you about what I was doing there, as I recall.”
She nodded.
“Well, that little detail has had an interesting result. Thanks to your little chat with your old friend Sgt. Martello, the RCMP is taking over the case. Of course, my partner has been seconded over to work with Martello on it. Phillips used to be RCMP, so naturally if Martello has to have Ottawa PD holding his hand, he would want a good old boy he knows.”
“Well, it’s a small world, I guess,” I said, trying a smile.
“It’s a small world, you guess.”
Quinn resumed her scan of the neighbourhood for a few seconds, and then turned to me again.
“The thing of it is, Mr. Anderson, I did advise you to leave this to us.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to tread on anyone’s toes here. But then I remembered seeing the passports in the apartment, and thought of Sgt. Martello. It’s his sort of file with the Mounties after all.”
“Sure. But we found nothing like that in Archambault’s apartment. What I’m looking at is having a case taken away from me on your say so, on what you think you may have seen.”
I couldn’t really think of anything to say to this.
“Anyway, you’ll hear from Martello and Phillips pretty soon. Thought you should know why you won’t hear any more from me about the arson here.”
She didn’t seem to be expecting a response to this, either.
She walked over to her car, a dark blue Crown Vic Police Interceptor, unlocked the door, got in, and slammed the door shut. She slid her window down, and seemed to be on the point of saying something else, but then just pulled away.
I’d obviously blotted my copybook with her. But I was familiar with interdepartmental struggles from my time in government. I still didn’t have any patience with them.